1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a heatsink to cool an object to be frozen, and, more particularly, to a heatsink having microchannels that increase a contact area between the heatsink and a working fluid.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, heatsinks are mounted on an object to be frozen such as a semiconductor chip to absorb and dissipate heat generated by the operation of the object to be frozen. Recently, however, attempts have been made to increase a contact area between a heatsink and a working fluid for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of cooling an object to be frozen. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,311 (hereinafter referred to as the '311 patent″) discloses a microchannel heatsink assembly in which microchannels are processed on a heatsink to form a plurality of micro-sized fluid pathways (see FIG. 1).
The microchannel heatsink assembly of the '311 patent is illustrated in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the heatsink assembly includes a manifold layer 10 through which a working fluid passes, and a microchannel layer 20 formed on the manifold layer 10 to cool the working fluid.
The manifold layer 10 includes an inlet 11 through which the working fluid enters, a fluid chamber 13 in which the working fluid having been cooled by the manifold layer 10 is contained, and an outlet 15 through which the working fluid inside the fluid chamber 13 exits the fluid chamber 13.
The microchannel layer 20 comprises microchannels 21 formed in a bottom surface thereof. The microchannels 21 form a plurality of fluid pathways between the inlet 11 and the fluid chamber 13 to increase a contact area between the working fluid and a front surface of the microchannel layer 20.
In the conventional heatsink assembly, the manifold layer 10 is attached onto the bottom surface of the microchannel layer 20 to uniformly supply the working fluid to the respective fluid pathways.
However, the conventional heatsink assembly has a drawback in that, since the manifold layer 10 and the microchannel layer 20 are directly bonded to each other in a two-layered structure, the overall thickness of the heatsink assembly increases. As such, using the conventional heatsink assembly in a thin electronic device is difficult.